


What Remains

by TempestVoiced



Series: The Cracks That Let the Light Shine (Anders/Allison Hawke) [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, F/M, Sad, it's really sad, like i'm not gonna lie it's super sad, there is some comfort tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 00:31:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4808048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestVoiced/pseuds/TempestVoiced
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Leandra dies, Hawke is all but falling apart at the seams. Try as he might, Anders doesn't know if he can sew her back together without leaving pieces of her behind.</p><p>(Post All That Remains)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Remains

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting in my drafts for a while, so I thought what the hey? Why not post it?  
> There is a mention of the happenings in my fic, [shaking](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3275537), but you don't have to read it to understand this. I _might_ write a follow up piece if I ever decide to finish it.  
>  Enjoy! <3  
> Follow me on tumblr: @tempestvoiced/@raediantocs

“ _I pieced her together from memory. I found her eyes, her skin, her delicate_ _fingers…And, at last, her face…oh, this beautiful face. I’ve searched far and wide to find you again, beloved, and no force on this earth will part us._ ”

The mad mage’s words echo in Hawke’s head, visions of her mother that wasn’t her mother, not  _truly_ , flashing in her mind. She feels like she’s going to be sick, overthinking the process of what that bastard did to the one who’d raised her. She’s stiff as she walks, her friends behind her as they weave through the dim burrows of Darktown. She can still feel the cold touch of hands that didn’t belong to her mother, pale skin and limbs of another long-gone woman, the gaze of blank, glossy eyes that would plague her dreams for weeks–

Hawke has to stop in her tracks, lean against a nearby wall and vomit up the contents of her stomach. Aveline is the one to help her, pulling the longer strands of ink-black hair out of her face as she gags and dry heaves. Varric and Anders turn their heads—not because they didn’t care, but because they both knew Hawke wouldn’t want them to see her like this. The Guardswoman says nothing when her friend finishes, eyes red and watery as she wipes the bile from her lips with the back of her hand.

 _Maker_ , Hawke feels like she’s dying, her body failing her from the inside out when Aveline has to take one of her arms and wrap it around her shoulder to keep her standing.

She feels helpless, empty, revolted, angry, alone,  _tired_.

Maker, she feels tired.

Once the group is out of Darktown, Hawke insists that she can make it home by herself, that she’ll see them later, though she doesn’t specify  _how_   _much_  later. Aveline places a comforting hand on her shoulder before walking towards the Keep. Varric gives her a solemn nod, taking his leave back to The Hanged Man.

She gives Anders a look that tells him plain as day that she’d very much rather be alone right now. Tentatively, he places a kiss on the top of her head, nodding in understanding. For now, he’d go back to the clinic and wait until it was almost dark to come back.

It’s not how he wants to leave things, but she’s already walking away from him, her arms wrapped around herself and her head low. There’s a certain kind of pain running through her now, one that not even his healing can help and  _he feels terrible for her_.

* * *

Anders leaves his clinic before the Darktown gangs come out of hiding, well into his walk to the Hawke Estate as the sun sets on Kirkwall. Refugees had sought his aide during the few hours since he’d seen Hawke that afternoon, but he couldn’t concentrate well enough for the life of him. He’d given three people the wrong poultice, not catching himself until they were halfway out the door. It was perfectly reasonable to be worried for the woman he loved, especially after what she’d just been through, so the mage was plenty eager to see her.

“Welcome back, Master Anders,” Bodahn greets him quietly when he enters the estate, his usual lively attitude gone for the occasion, “Serah Hawke is in her room, though she is not her best. She’s been locked up in her chambers with that dog of hers ever since she returned home.”

Anders nods, walking past the dwarf and quickly making his way up the stairs.

The door to her room—their room?—is closed, as he would expect, and he can’t hear anything through the wood. He knocks softly, waiting for her to allow him in. A bark comes from within the room, then a mumble he can’t quite make out. Anders takes that as his queue to gently open the door, bracing himself incase Talon decided to run and jump at him. The dog does not, in fact, do much of anything as he enters, which is a surprise to him. Talon was resting on the bed, his head on her legs. He makes soft whimpering sounds, big puppy eyes and all.

He can see from the door that the blankets are pulled up around her neck, partially obscuring her from view. He walks slowly toward the bed, sitting on the edge to give her enough space. He knows she’s awake, but the two don’t say anything for a while. A few minutes pass and he can feel the bed shift slightly as she begins to tear up again, shaking and sniffling and making pathetic-sounding noises she’ll kick herself for later.

Anders moves closer to her, putting a hand on her arm over the blanket. He can feel his heart dropping to his feet when she lets out a gut-wrenching sob, her restraint broken at last. Talon whimpers again, moving closer to her body.

“ _He_  ruined  _her_ ,” he barely hears her whisper through a sob, “ _That bastard killed my mother and_  ruined _her_.”

The healer stays silent for a minute, trying to gather a proper condolence to give her.

“I know nothing I say will change it,” he says, his voice quiet and attempting to be comforting, “I’m just…I’m sorry. You were lucky to have her as long as you did. When the pain fades, that’s what will matter.”

“I didn’t try hard enough to save her,” she mutters, pulling the blankets over her head.

“She wouldn’t want you to blame yourself,” he tries to tell her.

Her reply is bitter, scathing, and mumbled through the blankets, “You don’t know my mother.”

Anders sighs, “No, and I’m sorry I never will.” He pauses, “I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

A deep sigh comes from under the blankets before Hawke pokes her head out slightly.

“It just hurts. A lot. I don’t think it’ll ever  _stop_  hurting,” she says, finally sitting up a little and letting him look at the gist of her.

Anders has to stop himself from gasping a little at the state of her hair. What was once a long black curtain of hair that she’d regularly tie behind her head, was now an uneven mess, the shortest of the pieces hanging around her neck.

“Mother had always done my hair like hers when I was a girl,” she explains, voice low and dejected, “Even after she quit fixing it for me, I still tied it back the same way. It reminded me too much of her, so I cut it. It…looks awful, doesn’t it?”

While he normally would have agreed with her under more humorous circumstances, Anders knew now was not the time. Instead, he replied with, “We can fix it tomorrow. Right now, you should rest.”

He gives her another kiss on top of her mangled new hair cut, and when he pulls away to get off the bed, she pulls him back to her, wrapping her arms around his middle.

“Just. Stay with me, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

* * *

She has nightmares that night, screaming before she’s even awake and sobbing when she realizes it’s not real. It takes her a bit to realize she’s in her bed in Hightown with her lover picking her up off the floor when she throws herself off the bed in a fit of horror. Neither of them sleeps well that night, and he doesn’t make her talk about her dreams if she doesn’t want to.

After the nightmare, she’s in and out of sleep, being awoken by every shift from Anders or the snoring of the dog. Most of the night she spends staring up at the cloth of her four-poster, the same scenes playing in her head over and over again. Soft sunlight pours into the room and she’s still awake, the bags under her eyes evermore prominent.

When Anders wakes up early to start getting ready to go to the clinic, she feigns sleep. She doesn’t need him scolding her for not resting when it’s rare that he sleeps through the night either. She feels him kiss her forehead before leaving, hears him tell Bodahn to tell her that he had to go help the refugees, but that he’s at her beck and call should she need him.

She swears he’s too good for her, no matter how much he’d refute the compliment.

A few hours of sleep do come to her, though, letting her drift off an hour before lunch. Orana comes in with a tray of food, tries to get her Mistress to eat. Hawke feels bad turning the girl away, sweet as she is, but she just can’t will herself to  _move_. If she does, it’s like she’s a ghost possessing her own body, unable to feel anything but a numbness in her veins. She cries a little, but nothing more than silent tears she wipes away on her pillow.

Eventually, she does call Orana back, but only for a glass of water and a bottle of Antivan brandy from the cellars. She’s always heard of people trying to drown their sorrows in alcohol—what says she cannot perish under her own waves, as well?

She drinks the water first, wetting her dry mouth before she opens the bottle of brandy. It burns in her throat and doesn’t taste as good as it smells, but it gets her drunker than whatever piss-ale she’d been drinking at the Hanged Man for the last few years. She suffers through an entire bottle and doesn’t ask for more. She decides that if she wants another drink in an hour, she’ll call for Orana again; if she doesn’t and vomits all over her bedsheets in that hour, she’ll call it quits. She’s in mourning, not stupid.

By the time Anders returns late in the night, she’s a quarter of a way through a bottle of sweet tasting Orlesian wine some noble had given her months ago. It doesn’t quite have the sting of the brandy, but it tastes a hell of a lot better.

When he enters the bedroom, her head’s propped up on a pillow at the opposite end of the bed, the wine bottle to her lips that’s staining them red.

“Allison?” he calls to her gently, concern in his voice as he slowly approaches the bed. She groans in response, willing herself up on her elbows to look at him, spilling some of her wine in the process.

He walks to the edge of the bed and she grabs at his coat, pulling herself up further. He helps her up until she’s on her knees, sinking them into the mattress while the wine sloshes inside of its bottle. She offers him the drink, drunkenly shoving the neck of it into his feathered shoulders.

“Get drunk with me?” she asks him kindly, slurring her words with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Anders sighs, “You know Justice won’t let me get drunk anymore, love.”

“What if…” She pauses for a second, putting a hand to her temple as she tries to regain her train of thought, “What if…I ask  _nicely_ , hm?”

“I doubt it,” he tells her. She doesn’t protest when he takes the bottle from her, slipping it out of her fingers with ease. “Instead of drinking, why don’t we fix your hair?”

Hawke’s fingers immediately go to reach for the choppy strands of her raven coloured hair, frowning.

“What’s wrong with my hair?” she asks, then as if the thought had been planted into her mind suddenly, “Oh. I forgot.”

“It’s fine. I’ll fetch a pair of scissors and trim it the best I can, alright?” He talks to her slow and quiet-like, but not like he’s talking to a child; like she might break the moment he raises his voice. Even in her state, she has half a mind to tell him she’s not made of glass.

He leaves the room, appearing again moments later with the scissors in hand. She turns to face the wall for him when he begins taking pieces of her hair in between his fingers. He uses the pieces around her neck as a line to trim on. A few patches are uneven or lopsided, but get covered up with other stray pieces. He never claimed to be a hairdresser, but Maker be damned if he didn’t at least try for her.

By the time he’s done, there’s a pile of soft black locks on the floor at the foot of the bed and her hair is the shortest it’s ever been, hanging loosely around her ears. Anders hands her the hand mirror she kept on the mantle above the fireplace to let her look at herself. She runs her hands through it, and suddenly she’s crying again because  _she_  did this to herself and for whatever reason she can’t stop crying over something as stupid as her hair.

“I’m such an idiot,” she sniffs when Anders tries to move her back to the head of the bed.

“You’re not an idiot, love,” he says to her.

 _Just sad_ , he thinks.

 


End file.
